Total e-commerce revenues in CEE's six largest economies are set to grow 9% per annum by 2022, according to a report from Colliers International, but the expanding market should allow online and physical retail to flourish side by side.
Colliers forecasts a retail sales growth of €71.5 bn to 2022, around 4.9% per annum overall, creating enough 'evolutionary' room for multiple concepts to keep thriving. Conservative growth scenarios see e-commerce expanding 8.8% per annum from a baseline of €13.1 bn in the region to €20 bn.
'We acknowledge that current estimates may put the size of the online market closer to that mark even today. But even in a more bullish scenario of ecommerce capturing 10% of all retail sales by 2022, expanding to €34 bn, we foresee a decent majority of incremental sales still occurring through the traditional, established channels,' commented Mark Robinson, Colliers' CEE research specialist.
'While we might not see any rent rises in CEE-6 due to the online threat and some hard negotiations ahead, the markets do not appear very "overbuilt" at present,' Robinson added.
'The sheer rate of increase of overall retail sales means that it is very difficult to portray that omnichannel/traditional retail growth will taper towards nothing, even taking into account inflation. Significant wage increases, strong GDP growth and the increasing availability of credit should keep retail afloat,' he concluded.
